So I told them everything. How she hadn’t known how to say the words. How scared she’d been. How she needed to get away. How I dropped everything to make sure she could.
“She just… needed space.”
They didn’t look at me with pity now. Not with disbelief. No, they looked at me with rage burning behind their eyes, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was carrying it alone.
“I’m going to kill him,” Boone said, his voice a low growl.
“Yup,” Mac muttered.
“I’m right there with you,” Rhodes added.
“Trust me,” I said on a breath, the weight of it all settling heavy in my chest. “I wanted to the second she told me.”
Mac’s jaw clenched. His eyes locked on mine, sharp and unrelenting. “And you didn’t go over there because… what? Because I don’t think I could’ve held back.”
Boone stepped in, his voice low and strained. “And you didn’t call me?”
I exhaled hard, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck. “She told me not to,” I admitted quietly. “My first instinct was to storm over there myself, but she stopped me. Then I asked to call you, but… she said no.”
And that moment wasn’t about me. Not then. Not now. Maybe not ever. It had always been about her. For her.
Every decision I made from that point on, every step I took, would be with her in mind. My choices, my future, were all tied to her. I was wrapped around her without a single thread left loose.
Boone nodded slowly, his gaze dropping as he processed. I could see the wheels turning, the battle waging inside him. He didn’t say anything for a beat, but the silence said enough. Hurt. Frustration. Loyalty.
“I just can’t believe you kept it from me,” he finally said. Boone’s shoulders sagged.
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I looked around at the guys—my brothers in every way but blood—and I saw it in all of them. They cared about Ellie. They wanted to protect her. But she’d come tome. Trustedme. And in that moment, I had to honor that. No matter what it cost.
Boone’s eyes narrowed. “But we all could’ve stepped in more.”
I met his gaze without flinching. “I took care of her,” I said firmly. “And I always will.”
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath, tilting my head back toward the ceiling. The truth was out now, at least part of it. Might as well say the rest.
“I love her.”
Three words. Simple, but the weight of them slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer.
It grounded me. Cleared the storm inside me.
“You love her? Of course you do.” Boone echoed like it was common news.
Silence fell between us all, and my eyes flicked to Mac, who was the one person I’d confided in these last few weeks when it came to how I felt about Ellie.
Boone saw. His features flickered through too many emotions to name. The other two stayed quiet. They knew this moment belonged to us.
“I’m in love with your sister.” I straightened, shoulders squared. “And I know she likes me too.”
The silence that followed felt sacred. Boone cleared his throat, eyes on the ground, then finally looked up and nodded.
“I always knew you had a thing for her,” he said quietly. “The moment it hit me? That day you yelled at me on the ranch for not telling you I’d heard from her.”
I cringed at the memory, ashamed all over again.
“She reached out to me after that too,” I added. “We met up.”
“Huh.”